All Propaganda Is Lies: 1941 – 1942

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Volume 13 of The Complete Works of George OrwellOn 18 August 1941, Orwell joined the BBC’s Overseas Service. After a crash training course (the documents for which are reproduced here), he was appointed a Talks Producer responsible for features, talks and commentaries on the war, to be broadcast to India. He wrote at least 220 news commentaries for, and broadcast to, India and occupied Malaya and Indonesia, of which Orwell read fifty-six.. This volume shows that formal censorship was not as great a problem as has been supposed, though it obviously occurred and Orwell’s brushes with censors are shown in detail. Along with Volumes 14 and 15 of the Complete Works, Volume 13 shows the enormous efforts he made to disseminate culture rather than crude propaganda. It is in this volume that the origins of ‘Room 101’ are to be found; it has examples of his first ‘courses’ for Indian university student – the forerunner of the Open University; the first issue of his broadcast poetry magazine, ‘Voice’, and a nubmer of his own broadcasts, including ‘The Re-discovery of Europe’. He continued to review, to write essays, and to contribute to Partisan Review and he was still active in the Home Guard.

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